Rethinking the Buttons

I know we've talked about elevators before, but I'm here to give you a time-saving tip. You can thank me later. Most people, upon stepping into the elevator, follow this general process:

1. step in (while others shift away to make room)
2. press your destination floor (if it isn't already lit)
3. press the "door close" (optional)
4. face the front (and stare up at the numbers)

Now that I basically ride an elevator in every building I enter -- ah, the thrills of living in crazy-dense Asian urbania -- I've noticed a few things that help the patience-deprived, always-in-a-rush people.

You see, the elevator door takes time to close, and with the common steps above, you have this time during which everyone one in the elevator is just waiting for it to close. What a waste! So instead, try this:

1. step in
2. press the "door close"
3. press your destination floor
4. stare at the numbers like a dummy

You've just shaved a second off every elevator ride you'll ever take again in your life. If you ride twice a day (say to your apartment), over the next 10 years, that's an extra hour you've just saved yourself. You're welcome.

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Incidentally, I just realized that while living in California, I rarely needed elevators. I worked on the first floor (the whole company was on one floor), I lived on the first floor, and my gym was on the first floor. Interesting.

Medicine of the Traditional Sort

So what with my medium-serious sickness of late, I've been persuaded to seek out traditional chinese medicine as a form to alleviate my asthma symptoms.

Obviously, the ideas are different, as well as the process and concepts.

It's like "new acupuncture": gone are the days where you get long needles in your ear, where the treatment only lasts for as long as you're in the doctor's office. Now they paste on these sticker assemblies that have tiny little BB-pellet medicine balls. I originally thought they had needles, but I guess the doctor was pressing them into me so hard that I thought it was puncturing, but it's not. Instead, it creates "craters", and they're almost punctured into your skin to encourage bloodflow there, and then increase absorption of the medicine. And you leave the doctor's, but are told to massage each sticker 4 times a day, 30 seconds each time, for the week.

Anyway, along with it is a strict diet limitation. I call it "The List". Here's what I can't eat:

Exacerbating the hives: seafood, beef, lamb, duck, goose, duck eggs, alcohol, spicy foods, mushrooms, chives, cilantro, taro / lotus root, mango, something-i-can't-read, bamboo shoots / asparagus / anything from that family.

Agitates asthma: seafood, oranges, watermelon, banana, cool/cold things, spicy foods.

Negative interaction with the Chinese medicine: mung beans, carrots / daikon, a certain type of "hollow heart" vegetable.

Yeah. So the second week, I went back to get the medicine (slightly different prescription from the first week, given slightly different symptoms he noticed) and had a quick word with him. As I was leaving, here's the conversation we had:

"Just try to stay away from those certain foods. You have the list?" He grabs another card and is about to tick off the relevant items for me.
"Yeah, I carry that list in my wallet." I pat my pocket.
He starts reading it out, "Beef, lamb, duck, ..."
I had to go, so I politely cut him off, "Basically, I can eat chicken."
"Well, you can eat pork too."
I stood there, looking stupid for a second.
"Oh."

I don't know why, but we somehow had gotten it into our heads that I was only allowed chicken. And all this past week, I've been restricting myself from eating just about any meat imaginable -- and given the normal Taiwanese diet, cutting pork out just about means going vegetarian.

As a reward, I had pork that dinner. And it was the best pork I ever tasted. :-) Can't wait until I can have steak again!

Job for Life

Imagine a job that you would just love to live for, a job so absolutely fantastical that it wouldn't feel like work: it's like your hobby that you get paid for. Few of us are lucky enough to have that. So I ask of you,

How far would you go to get that job?

I mean, what would you do to get it and/or keep it? Would you travel halfway around the world? Would you take a 20-40% paycut? Would you work (play) longer hours? Would you risk your relationship/marriage? How far?

(Disclosing what your dream job actually is, is optional.)

Indecisive as All Hell

Given the untimely demise of my trusty Canon Powershot S400, I'm in the market for a new one. And I've basically narrowed my choices down to two of Canon's best-selling point-and-shoot cameras: the Powershot SD800IS and the SD900.

But which?

SD800IS: poorer optics and sensor (corners are blurry), but has image stabilizer and wideangle lens
SD900: better sensor, better lens assembly, more solid build and looks nicer

I've been agonizing over this for the past 2-3 weeks, as a friend knows very well, lending a sympathetic ear to every morsel of information I gather. I read numerous reviews on the two models, compare side-by-side photos, and even took photos of my own while at the local Future-Shop-esque consumer electronics store. (Of course, I didn't ask them any questions, because why burden them with the thought processes of making up answers when they don't know them? I already know more about these cameras than they do.)

And I think I've finally decided on the SD800IS.
At least for now.

Of course, I've "decided" on the SD800IS before, but changed my mind to the SD900 not three hours later, and then promptly repositioned myself carefully on the "undecided" fence.

I think most of all, I think I'm just frustrated that any current camera model I buy is going to definitively have worse raw image quality than the Canon S400 I bought some 4 years ago. And that just makes me mad. We're supposed to be going forward, not backwards.

Perhaps I'll just try to develope a photographic memory and leave it at that.

[2007-02-02 update: I just realized what an ugly beast the SD800IS really is. And then I remembered that the power button isn't easy to get at, especially with one-hand operation. It could be that, after all this research, it all comes down to the power button design. I'll go check out some real models today and play with that.]

Sniper Photography

A recent discussion regarding having a lack of image stabilization (IS) in our cameras gave me a nice collection of techniques to use to get that steady shot when lighting isn't optimal.

I have a pretty steady hand when taking photos -- I just have learned how to steady my hand/arms/body pretty well. So while the IS feature not as vital for me, it is useful to have in my camera for my girlfriend, random people who you ask to take a photo for me, and people suffering from Parkinsons. I basically trained myself after several years on how to hold the camera and take the shot to minimize blur.

I hate it when people hold the cameras like ... two hands on the camera, index fingers on the top corners, thumbs on the bottom, and hold it out from their body almost as if they're trying to push it away from them. I mean, hello, how could you possibly get a steady shot like that??

At least for a pocketable point-and-shoot camera, you need to hold it with as much of your hand as you can -- you have to kind of "palm" it, or rest it on your palm -- and the shutter finger can't have any of the camera-holding burden at all. Keeping your hands and elbows close to you, or resting them on a table or against a pole/wall, is essential. I actually relax my hands and arms (though still snug on the camera) to remove that "exerting force" muscle jitter (you know what I mean, I know you do). And sometimes, I even slowly exhale just before shutter time. Occasionally, I'll look away a bit from the LCD when I take a longer picture (ie. over 1/5s) -- so that I'm not worrying and trying to immediately compensate for any camera movement I see.

In really critically dark photos, I put the 2-second timer on, so that the actual pressing of the shutter release doesn't cause vibrations. Yes, it really does make a difference.

Yeah, I'm anal about it. But my pictures turn out clear, and that's good enough justification for me. Huh, I wonder if any photographers take those pills that snipers take to lower their heartbeats and stuff.

Every Man

Every once in a while, I hear someone make a general requirement of men's belongings. That is,

"Every man needs a ___________."

Sometimes I agree, sometimes I think they're full of it. For instance, a nice shaver I think is something every man should have; a crystal wine decanter, not-so-much.
A decent skincare product, yes;
a full set of wrenches, perhaps not.

So I ask of you, what would be in your list of things a man must have?

Another Day, Another Bag o' Pills

Good news! My pneumonia is about 95% healed, and I went into the doctor's today to see about longer-term health issues. Foremost on my list is the asthma I've had since childhood, which I've been wanting to find a better solution to than just puffing up the inhaler whenever I need it. (Since coming to Taiwan, I've been needing them more and more often, which I attribute to Taipei's fantastic pollution.)

So he puts that cold stethoscope to me, listens for a while, and what did I get?

amoxillin (500mg)
somin
FUCOU
spiropent

Nearly the same prescription for my nearly-gone cough, just to make sure it's done and dealt with. Lovely. Of course, he did add on one more item:

PULMICORT

This Pulmicort -- or Rhinocort, in other countries -- is actually a nasal spray. I haven't tried it yet, but I don't really want to spray stuff in my nose; I'd much rather inhale a packet of powder like the SereVent Diskus or Advair Diskus I've had before.

I'll bet my drug dealer doctor is really liking me now.